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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26373769">Greasy Perceptions</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HesterStarling/pseuds/HesterStarling'>HesterStarling</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Challenge fic, F/M, Humour</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:41:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>836</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26373769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HesterStarling/pseuds/HesterStarling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen deals with his correspondence, including some very suspect letters.</p><p>Another joke piece, based on a ludicrous comment that I got on another of my fics. A spam commenter who was trying to sell me explicit pictures wrote "I am juicy with greasy perception" and then a link. The same friend who challenged me to write cake icing into Mandolorian fan fic challeneged me to put that line into a DA fan fic. Given the drama filled week we DA fans are having, I thought you might like to see the results.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Greasy Perceptions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You really take the time to politely refuse all of these? Personally? Why?”</p><p>“Because I don’t have an ambassador to do it for me.”</p><p>Evelyn couldn’t help but smile at her Commander’s irritation. Stretched on the sofa before the fire, her own correspondence completed she sipped at an exquisite Antivan red. Cullen had commandeered her desk to finish his. Her heart had sank slightly when he had arrived in her quarters with an armful of paperwork, and he had been seemingly oblivious to her reproachful look. It was full dark now; the moon glittered through the opulent stained glass of her windows and cast an elegant tracery of shadows across her floor.</p><p>His brow was furrowed with concentration. His armour had been carefully set to one side and he sat with shirt sleeves pushed up away from the ink. She loved seeing him like this; jokes abounded around Skyhold that his armour was welded on. It thrilled her that something so simple as seeing him in shirtsleeves felt like an intimacy.</p><p>She was getting dangerously close to the bottom of her first bottle of wine and her lover seemed no closer to setting down his quill. Stretching in a way that she hoped would catch his attention she stood and padded barefoot across the room, coming to perch on the desk beside him. Beside him, sat a pile of opened letters, many of them reeking of perfume, all containing ludicrous propositions and proposals of marriage.</p><p>“Let me help?”</p><p>“You’ll laugh.”</p><p>“Well, yes, probably.”</p><p>He set down his quill and regarded her with those leonine eyes.</p><p>“I know it seems foolish, but they’ve taken the time to write these ridiculous concoctions, it wouldn’t seem right to just ignore them. A polite refusal takes only a few minutes to write. I wouldn’t have it said that I was callous.”</p><p>His voice was so sincere that she ached at his naiveite. She had danced the measure of noble intrigue for her whole life. Propositions and proposals were rarely written with the expectation of acceptance. Instead, nobles would boast of their spurned overtures, would dramatically sigh until friends comforted them with wine. Forevermore, they would be able to link themselves with the powerful, if only in a small way. Whenever Cullen’s name was mentioned at some ball or banquet, an elderly matron could sigh about how she had hoped he would marry her daughter. It was the currency of influence and gossip, nothing more.</p><p>Evelyn smoothed her hands up into his curls and lowered her face to kiss his brow. The scent of steel and temple incense filled her and she rested there for a moment, simply enjoying it, until her eyes drifted to the missive he currently held. The paper had an elaborate border of roses and stank of perfume. She ran her eyes across a sentence and then erupted in giggles.</p><p>“<em>’I am already juicy with greasy perception?’</em> What the actual…” Evelyn dissolved into mirth again.  Cullen turned scarlet. “I’m sorry love…it’s just….” It was impossible to get any further.</p><p>“I’ll admit, it is an interesting turn of phrase. I think it should read ‘anticipation’.”</p><p>Evelyn saw the corners of his mouth twitch as even her stoic and steady commander struggled to take the nonsense seriously.</p><p>“You should hear the next line Evie: ‘<em>truly sir, the silk of my unmentionables is at risk every day you do not sate me…’.”</em></p><p>Taking the letter from him Evelyn took over, affecting a dramatic falsetto “<em>But I will never remove them, for these are the very ones I wore when first I caught sight of your golden orbs.”</em></p><p>“I think they mean my eyes…I really hope they do.” Even Cullen chuckled now, taking her glass from her hand unasked and draining it. “Although given the next line is ‘<em>and have longed ever since to press your golden curls to my…”</em></p><p>The end of his sentence was lost in Evelyn’s laughter.</p><p>“<em>I ache for you like a halla’s rack in rutting season.”</em> Cullen finally tossed the letter to one side and pulled her down onto his lap. “Please don’t ever ask me to write something like that.”</p><p>“Why don’t you ask one of Josephine’s aides to finish these for you?” She shifted to sit across his lap, and kissed the last trace of wine from his lips. The sharp bristle of a day’s worth of stubble grated against her cheek.</p><p>“And have everyone know about these things? Can you imagine the war table meetings after that? Can you imagine if <em>Dorian</em> found out?”</p><p>“How little you trust our ambassador!”</p><p>“How little I trust her not to tell Leliana, and how little I trust that Leliana’s sense of humour…”</p><p>Evelyn was forced to agree. She smoothed her hands beneath his shirt collar.</p><p>“Enough work, love. Enough now.” Evelyn tried to make her voice as serious as she could, tried to force a sincere and seductive expression to her face. “I am already juicy with greasy…”</p><p>“Evelyn Trevelyan, you are sleeping alone.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have to give credit to my husband for suggesting some of the lines from Cullen's amourous correspondent. We spent a lot of time giggling and trying to come up with increasingly ridiculous lines. Most of these didn't make it in to the fic - you should thank us. :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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